Sunday, May 11, 2008

True story on Mother's Day

My boys are busy making their grandmother a card (nice going, as she's coming over really soon), and I'm just about to serve the quiche I made for our brunch.

I really don't have much, just the quiche (spinach straight from this morning's farmer's market), some fresh hot house tomatoes (also from the farmer's market), and bacon. Plus sweet chai for the lot of us.

The plan up until about 10:45 today was for us to walk down the street and get brunch. I didn't want to worry about dishes and things. However, I decided I'd much rather have the relaxed atmosphere of home (read as: I didn't feel like getting dressed, seeing people, or paying for brunch for 4), and the quiche idea was born.

Anyway, an hour or so later I realized it was the 20th anniversary of my suicide attempt. I had made a gesture towards suicide a month or so before, but it was just a cry for help. My second real attempt was on the Saturday before Mother's Day, 1987. It landed me in the E.R. and then in hospital for two weeks.

I don't want to write about it now, because it's far too intense a story to throw around willy nilly, and I can't honestly toss it off in the two minutes I have before Brunch is served.

Perhaps I will tell it later. In any case, I mark the day. I remember the red carnation in the plastic vase next to me in my hospital bed, and feeling sad for my mother that I'd chosen just then to commit suicide.